


Valetine & Vimes: Red, Yellow, Green

by Aleaiactaest, Slyjinks



Series: Valentine & Vimes [6]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Fallout 4
Genre: Budget Discussions, Crossover, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Occasionally Awkward Sex, Porn With Civil Engineering, Porn With Plot, Voyeurism, traffic lights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:47:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27303625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aleaiactaest/pseuds/Aleaiactaest, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slyjinks/pseuds/Slyjinks
Summary: Sybil begins to take an interest in her husband and his husband’s *ahem* bedroom activities, and eventually Valentine and Vimes agree to allow her to observe. Sybil soon finds that the reality doesn’t match her well-read, well-educated expectations. Valentine and Vimes never bothered with the classics on theproperway to go about things; they just do what works for them! Once she’s willing to put aside her preconceptions, the sessions prove very educational. In particular, it turns out that the “Red, Yellow, Green” short-hand that the two men use to communicate their comfort level has applications far beyond the bedroom!
Relationships: Nick Valentine/Samuel Vimes, Sybil Ramkin/Samuel Vimes
Series: Valentine & Vimes [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689076
Kudos: 5





	1. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story so far: Less than a year ago, a magic accident threw Sam Vimes into the role of the Sole Survivor in a simulation/game running on Hex. He believed what he experienced to be real, and his realness and belief brought a measure of realness to those characters he interacted with most. In the year-plus of in-game time, believing himself to be a widow, he fell in love with Nick Valentine. When he was brought home, the game characters who had been given realness were brought with him. Eventually Sam, Nick (who had joined the Watch), and Sybil worked things out between them. In the end, the Vimes family adopted the synth duplicate of Young Sam (now renamed Shaun) and Sam Vimes took a husband in addition to his wife. Meanwhile, DiMA stuck around Unseen University to better understand the nature of this new reality, and eventually became an official student; Piper and Nat joined the Ankh-Morpork Times staff; Deacon went to work for the Golem Trust; Codsworth went to work for the Vimes family; Strong joined the Watch; Preston became a guard for the Clacks network; Old Longfellow ran off to Fourecks to run banana wine carts across their wilds; and who even knows what Hancock is up to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Every chapter in this fic has sexually explicit sections. Some chapters have other things as well, such as budget discussions.
> 
> **We’ve created a Discord server for chatting about Discworld, Fallout, or this fic. Feel free to join us at<https://discord.gg/6QM4Egy>**

_Red_

Sybil liked to set herself up on dates with Nick, oh, once or twice a month, doing things like going to the Opera, the Ballet, the Dysk, or other vaguely arty-farty things the likes of which typically put Vimes to sleep. Nick didn’t seem to mind, though it made Vimes feel somewhat guilty. He was aware that he had a Duty as a Husband, although he was a bit unclear of what it was, in that case. A duty to go along, hold the door for Sybil, and fall asleep?

Sybil was often in an… agreeable mood when she and Nick returned home, Vimes had noted, although he wasn’t usually back before they were. Sybil carefully picked nights where she knew that Vimes was going to be busy with late meetings, so that either she or Nick wouldn’t be missing out on time that they could theoretically be spending with their husband. It was always theoretical time. Unplanned meetings and being dragged into important cases didn’t happen as often as it once had; the Watch and the city both ran more smoothly than not now, but he didn’t think he’d had a month go by without _something_ coming up.

Funnily enough, Sybil tended to put her dates with Nick on days when she knew that she had her husband. She’d come home, she’d enthuse a bit with Nick about whatever they’d just seen or done, and then Vimes would drag in, like a sodden cat out of the rain, and she’d scoop him up.

It worked out surprisingly well, all told.

But the scheduling hadn’t quite worked out tonight. Vimes was home first. He’d checked on the boys again - he’d already seen them once, between when he got home and before he’d had to go back to his meeting - and they were fine, sleeping, or pretending to sleep as the case might be with Shaun. Vimes did worry about that boy. The kitchen had leftovers of dinner thoughtfully packaged up for him, and Vimes sat down with his cold salad, and he waited, dissecting his salad with a forensic dispassion.

He had just about forced himself to finish all of it, because it was food and it wanted eating up, when Sybil and Nick returned, all smiles at each other, which shortly turned and became smiles at him. They appeared to be wrapping up a discussion of whatever it was that they’d watched, as Nick asked, “I gotta ask, was the thing with the chicken-boat weird? I still don’t know enough of the cultural references…”

“There’s a strong folklore tradition of people being transformed into chickens, actually,” Sybil said brightly. “The Eight Chickens, of course, about eight brothers who are turned into chickens when the eighth of them turned out to be a wizard who didn’t know what he was doing; Thestias and the Chicken, in which Io took the form of a chicken to seduce Thestias -”

Nick made a noise like a cough. “Sam! Meeting went okay?”

“We may, possibly, have funding for new barricades,” Vimes replied. Of course, if the city wouldn’t cough up the dough, he’d pay for them himself…

Sybil’s radiant smile turned to a slight frown, as she sat down at the table with him. “Dear, you know that if they know that you’ll keep paying for things if they don’t, the city is never going to properly fund the Watch.”

Vimes sighed. “You two enjoyed your …?”

“ _Lohenshaak_! An opera in which a knight saves an innocent woman from murder accusations and their marriage is ruined by communication difficulties because she isn’t allowed to ask him what his name is. I mean, seriously, the fellah could have given her an alias. A dame needs _some_ name to call out on her wedding night,” said Nick, in a teasing tone of voice, as he sat down on the other side of Vimes at the table.

“An alias would have been entirely too practical,” Sybil observed, smiling again.

Vimes finished his salad and checked his Pip-Boy. Nick had him that night, actually. He supposed that Sybil had been presented with some scheduling difficulties. Maybe _Lohenshaak_ was a limited run. He didn’t pay attention to those kinds of things. “Hmm. That does sound suspect. But as long as you had fun.”

“Oh, we did,” Sybil enthused. “You should have seen the costumes, Sam!”

Vimes didn’t really think that he wanted to, so it was nice that Nick had instead.

“Enough Ankhstones to blind a batallion,” said Nick.

“And the musical numbers, oh… I do think I’m going to need to have the sheet music for it. It’ll be something to practice in the bath,” sighed Sybil, dreamily.

He let them talk around him, offering only occasional automatic comments, until the conservation petered out. Then Vimes took Nick’s hand, and he said, “I was thinking about retiring to bed.”

Nick didn’t need to sleep, but he’d grab a book and put a dim candle off to his side of the bed, and he’d _be there_ , and Vimes would fall asleep to the quiet humming of Nick’s fans. 

Sybil said, very quietly, “I should like to watch you sometime, if you were both agreeable.”

Vimes had genuinely been thinking about sleep. He hadn’t actually been thinking about bedding Nick that night. Maybe in a few days or so. Vimes paused, because his automatic answer to Sybil was, ‘Yes,’ and even if he thought about it a bit more, his answer was still, ‘Yes,’ for some deep-down reasons that made him blush, but there was Nick to consider here.

Nick appeared uncomfortable, and he looked at Vimes, who knew he had ‘yes’ written on his face. Vimes prompted, “Nick?”

Put on the spot, Nick said, “I, uh… would have to think about that.”

“By all means,” replied Sybil.

“Good night, dear,” said Vimes, giving her a peck. Then he took Nick’s hand and took him to bed.

Laying beside him, Nick confessed, “I just really don’t know how I’d feel about that. I don’t know that I could handle stripping in front of your wife.”

“She wouldn’t make fun,” said Vimes, propping himself up on his elbows, although the elbows only propped so far, given the softness of the mattresses that he favoured. Sybil was the only woman who hadn’t made fun of poor ol’ Sam Vimes, when he’d been down on his luck. She wouldn’t make fun of Nick.

“I’d still feel weird about it,” Nick mumbled. “Besides, it’ll just remind me that I shouldn’t be taking you away from her, anyway.”

Vimes sighed. “Nick, you are my lawfully wedded husband, with her consent, and we have all agreed that you are entitled to a piece of my time.”

They kept having to go over that.

Maybe if Vimes had done a better job of it, early on, Nick wouldn’t still be quite so anxious about it all, but Vimes had cocked it up at the start, and that failure kept charging interest. There was nothing for it but to keep reassuring Nick, as best he could.

Sybil tended to come home in a… frolicsome mood, after a night out with Nick, and she’d seemed to assume that of course Vimes would be bedding Nick… Vimes frowned. “Did you fancy a bonk?”

“I dunno,” said Nick.

Nick didn’t quite seem to have a human’s libido, although Vimes didn’t entirely understand it.

Vimes gave up. “Mhm. If you decide you do, wake me up.”

* * *

The next time Vimes had Nick, Nick was the one coming home late, off a Swing shift that he’d filled in for Ironbender, who’d had to go to a Grandmother’s Funeral. Vimes was already in bed, but he was never a heavy sleeper, and despite Nick trying to be quiet about it, he woke up and greeted Nick with a grunt that was halfway a ‘hello’.

“Sorry to wake you, sweetheart,” Nick murmured, settling in beside him.

Vimes climbed on top of Nick and suggested, “You’ll just have to put me back to sleep.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Y’want a bedtime story?”

“Something like that.” Vimes tucked his head under Nick’s chin and kissed his neck gently along one of the ragged edges.

“This is... absolutely nothing like a bedtime story,” said Nick, who saw where this was going, “but okay.”

They kissed and caressed, body to body, just separated by the faded blue nightgown that Nick was wearing. Vimes’s fingers and lips found all their familiar haunts, those places that made Nick sigh with contentment, that made him moan and whine, and Nick did the same to him.

Once his fingers had sufficiently done the talking to talk Nick out of his nightgown, Vimes kissed down his chest, pausing at his anatomically improbable bellybutton and the seam beneath, that happy trail leading right to his joystick. Nick squirmed; he was ticklish, a fact which Vimes used against Nick again and again.

When Nick finally caved and begged Vimes to stop, he did, and he reached over to Nick’s nightstand to retrieve the naughty book that Nick had. It was a collection of… positions for… congress. Not political positions.

Vimes and Nick had gone through much of it, writing annotations in the margins. He flipped to a well-thumbed page. Nick squinted at it and reminded, “We’re not doing that unless we both have the next day off, and I know we don’t.”

Vimes sighed, and he flipped some more pages, aimlessly. He paused on one. “Oh, hmm, we haven’t tried this one with you on bottom, although I suppose you’d really still be on top.”

Nick looked at it. “Reverse cowboy? Sure.”

He pulled Vimes up and wrapped his synthflesh hand around both of their cocks together and rubbed. Vimes moved a hand down, too, overlapping Nick’s. His other hand grabbed the Mrs. Proust’s Gentlemen’s Emollient, and after slicking some lube on his finger, he dove that hand between Nick’s thighs and behind, to play with his lover’s bottom eye.

Nick made a soft noise and wrapped his free arm around Vimes’s shoulders. He kissed Vimes’s forehead, and Vimes kissed along Nick’s neck, stiffening as he felt Nick relax around his fingers. 

Vimes rolled off of Nick, lubed his prick, and gestured, and Nick climbed over him, facing away. Then he reached down, took Vimes’s cock in hand, and slowly guided it up to and into his tight ring. Vimes put his hands on Nick’s hips, heart beating faster as Nick lowered himself down, taking in the rest of Vimes. Nick was a most wonderful hot pressure around him, and he started to move, rocking up and down, the compression around his member exhilarating.

As Nick warmed up, he gradually picked up speed. All Vimes had to do was lay back in the nice, soft bed, and enjoy. Enjoy he did, watching Nick slide up and down on him, taking all of Vimes with apparent satisfaction, to listen to him. Vimes had his hands on Nick’s hips, and he let his thumbs graze out, rubbing Nick’s buttocks. The… texture of Nick’s synthflesh was… interesting. Vimes couldn’t really describe it, aside from ‘sort of like a human and sort of not’, but he _liked_ it. Admiringly, he cooed, “Oh, that’s a lovely view.”

Nick paused. “Erm, if you say so.”

“I _do_ say so,” Vimes snapped, giving Nick a bit of a squeeze.

“You really like…”

“I love you, and I love the view,” Vimes said firmly. Oh, if only he hadn’t gone and made Nick’s self esteem problems worse than they were with his own poor behaviour… but he had, and there was nothing for it but to put in the long, patient work of reminding Nick that he did have desirable qualities and that he _was_ loved. It might be the work of the remainder of a lifetime, Vimes suspected, undoing those mistakes of his.

“Oh,” said Nick, who took a moment, and then he got back on with it.

He gave Vimes a delightful buildup, adjusting his pace just so to deprive Vimes of all sense, and oh, the follow through was just perfect. From the sounds Nick made, he’d had at least as much benefit from the experience as Vimes did. Nick straddled Vimes, and they cuddled together, all soft, loving strokes.

Nick seemed a bit hung up on their earlier, brief discussion. “Y’really found my flat ass -”

“I find my husband attractive. That this is still news to you means I ought to say it more often, I suppose,” Vimes sighed.

“It’s just not the most flattering -” Nick started.

Nick had body image hangups. He had body image hangups so obvious that Vimes, who was generally not the most perceptive on such matters, was aware that Nick had body image hangups. 

“No one’s taking an iconograph of you,” Vimes pointed out, trying another tact.

“No, but, uhm, Sybil had asked about watching…” Nick said sheepishly.

“It was just a request. We don’t have to do that,” Vimes said, rubbing Nick’s back as they cuddled together.

“You seemed excited by it,” Nick mumbled, looking away.

“I was. I am. We don’t have to do things just because I find them exciting,” said Vimes, thinking about that one position in the naughty book…

But why wouldn’t he be excited by the thought of Sybil watching them? He adored her, and he lived to see her happy. If it pleased her, to see him and Nick pleasing each other…? Oh, and Vimes had to admit to himself that he had fantasies of the three of them together, and her watching wasn’t quite that, but it was close enough to make his heart pound and his mouth water.

All of that meant nothing if it would make Nick uncomfortable, however.

“I guess we could try it,” Nick said eventually.

Vimes couldn’t conceal his eagerness, licking at his lips, he assured, “We - I will make it very clear that if anyone feels at all uncomfortable that we’ll stop.”

“Sure,” said Nick.

Vimes cuddled up against Nick’s side for the night and fell into a very pleasant sleep, filled with the most interesting dreams. Come morning, he had a bit of a surprise. Nick helped him with that.

* * *

After a friendly card game that ended in Deacon wearing a lampshade in a serious attempt to pass himself off as a lamp as Piper nearly broke a rib laughing, Nick found himself alone with Sam and Sybil. They’d all had what Sybil would call a rollicking good time, and Sam was theoretically Nick’s for the night, barring interruptions…

Nick took a moment to steel himself, which should have been easy for him, but somehow it wasn’t. Then he offered, “You could watch us. If Sam’s okay with it. And you still want to.”

Sybil was a dynamite dame, but she was frankly too kind to him. If Sam had been Nick’s first, sure, Nick would have let Sam have another partner, but Sybil came from a monogamous background in a way that Nick did not. Nick owed her. He felt like a thief sometimes, stealing her Sam away from her. If Sybil wanted to watch her husband with another person, the least he could do was to oblige her.

Eager looks immediately flashed onto both Sybil and Sam’s faces, and Sam said, “Yes!” just as Sybil said, “I should very much like that, thank you.”

Sam wrapped an arm around Nick’s waist, rocked up on his tiptoes, and kissed him full on the mouth. His eyes, which most often showed no more or less than a simmering rage, lit with delight. He broke off a moment, then grabbed Nick’s tie to haul him down and kissed him again. Sam’s hand on his waist drifted down to his butt and cupped it, and Nick protested, “ _Sam_!”

Sam blinked at him. “What?”

“That’s my bottom! We’re in…” _...the card room, and Sybil’s watching, but I just said she can watch us screw, and uh…_ “...nevermind. Uhm. Maybe we should hit the bedroom sooner rather than later?”

Sam’s wide smile _probably_ would have been unpleasantly similar to a shark’s to most people, but love did funny things to a synth. He tried to pick Nick up, but Nick coughed and insisted, “Sam, I can walk just fine.”

Sam could carry him like a princess and he’d cuddle up against Sam and feel those often-broken ribs through his shirt if it was just them, but a man had to have some dignity when a lady was watching.

Once in the bedroom, Sam hit the bed and pulled his shirt off. Then he reached down to unbelt and unbutton his breeches. Nick sat down awkwardly on the side of the bed, suddenly feeling very, very self-conscious. He looked all right enough, he supposed, in a uniform or if he was sharply dressed, but clothes made the man, and without his clothes, he was nothing but seams, plastic, rivets, damage, and exposed machinery, and he’d be oh-so-exposed. Sybil would see a tinkertoy, not a man.

What Sybil was actually looking at was their room, however. Nick didn’t know that she’d been in here since Nick moved in. Nick had filled up three bookcases, even though the mansion had its own library. There were two nightstands, one for Nick and one for Sam. Nick kept a small, dim candle on his and lit it when he wanted to read while Sam slept. He’d hung up a painting of a moose, and he wasn’t sure why, but he knew that he’d left it askew so that, if he ever came in, and the painting had been straightened, he’d know not only that someone had been in his room but that they were a bit anal retentive.

Sam had liked that, when Nick had explained it to him.

There were a few chairs and a table, on which there was a comic book. Nick said that he got the comic books for young Sam and Shaun, but he read them first himself.

“Hmm,” was all that Sybil said of the room. She sat down on the other side of the bed.

Sam was naked already, and Nick’s hand was still on his tie, as he contemplated if he really wanted to take it off. Sam grabbed it, anyway, to importune another kiss of Nick. When Sam broke off, Nick leaned in and asked in a whisper, “Do you think I could get away with just pulling down my pants?”

Sam pulled back and blinked. “If it would make you more comfortable. Oh, and I did want to say, if anyone feels uncomfortable, we’ll stop. Nick and I have this system, actually, where green means go on, yellow means pause or slow down or back off on the intensity, and red is a full stop. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, it’s easier to say a little colour.”

Sybil looked thoughtful. “That’s quite clever. I wish we’d had that at the start of our courtship. But… why those colours?”

Sam looked blank. While Sam must have seen old burnt-out traffic lights in the Commonwealth, Nick didn’t recall that he’d ever explained them to him. Nick coughed. “Oh. It’s from traffic lights. We had them before the War. They were these lights strung at intersections. Green meant go, yellow meant slow, and red meant stop. So you could regulate traffic by varying how long each light lasted in a given direction.”

Sybil exclaimed, “What, that’s genius! Sam, why don’t we have traffic lights?”

“Because Nick never explained them to me?” replied Sam, looking betrayed.

“Sam, you ought to take Nick with you on your next meeting with Havelock, have him explain -” Sybil started.

“I am not taking Nick on a meeting with the Patrician!” Sam snapped. “Do you know how cruel it would be to inflict that on Nick?”

“Nonsense, Havelock’s a lovely fellow. I’ll have him to tea with Nick,” Sybil insisted.

Mr. and Mrs. Vimes did not appear to share the same reality with regards to the nature of the Patrician. Mr. Valentine-Vimes stayed out of it.

“Look, I’ll have Nick write something up, run it by Pessimal, and then see what Vetinari thinks of it,” Sam offered.

“I’m still having Nick and Havelock to tea,” Sybil threatened.

Nick wondered if he could get out of sex entirely by writing a report. He tried to stealthily rise to go to the table with the chair.

Sam, however, remembered what they’d come here to do, and he plopped himself onto Nick’s lap. He wrapped his arms around Nick’s shoulders and kissed down along his neck, careful of the tears, as always. Nick put his hands on Sam’s hips and kissed his forehead.

“Do you usually stay dressed during foreplay?” Sybil inquired.

“Not as such, no,” Nick admitted. Sometimes they’d screw almost fully clothed, if they were pressed for time, but if they weren’t pressed for time, he’d get naked for Sam, whose fingers would trace Nick’s damage with care, not revulsion. “I’m just… a bit sensitive about my looks, that’s all.”

Sybil unpinned her wig, showing her close-cropped hair that didn’t quite hide her burn scars. Nick had known those burn scars were there, from the dead body he’d seen in Vault 111. She offered, “There’s no shame in showing that you’ve lived life and survived.” She looked fondly over at Sam, him with all of his interesting scars.

Sam didn’t even know how he’d gotten the scar on his palm. Nick had asked.

Nick owed Sybil, didn’t he? “Uhm, look, I’ll roll up my sleeves, but if you don’t like what you see, I can just roll them back down, no harm, no foul.”

“It really only matters if Sam likes what he sees,” Sybil observed.

“And I do,” Sam assured.

Nick unbuttoned his left cuff and slowly pulled up his sleeve. The skin was mostly intact on his left arm, but his seams showed at his wrist and his mid bicep, and wear was obvious at his elbow.

Sam took his hand and started kissing from his fingers up his arm.

“Oh,” said Sybil, an expression of care on her face. “Your elbow’s… scraped. Does it hurt? Is there anything for it?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” said Nick, which was more or less true. He had random aches and pains, and some patches felt numb and sometimes tingled rather unpleasantly, but it was all manageable. It didn’t stop him from doing anything he wanted to do. It just meant that he complained about running up too many flights of stairs, but at his age, he was entitled. “And… I dunno about non-essential repairs. DiMA’s looked into making plastics, but he puts a lot of magic into it, and I dunno if I want to put magic into my body.”

Sam paused at kissing along Nick’s biceps seam to comment, “It’s your body, of course, but you know my opinions on magic.”

Nick reluctantly unbuttoned his right cuff and pulled that sleeve up. People who saw damaged Gen 2 synths _wanted_ to describe them as skeletal, but that wasn’t quite right. A human ulna and radius didn’t look like Nick’s right forearm. Sam kissed the back of Nick’s right hand carefully.

At least Sybil hadn’t screamed and fainted.

With some misgivings, Nick untied his tie, folding it neatly, and started to unbutton his shirt. He warned, “No, I don’t have nipples.”

“But he’s got rivets all over, and those are almost as sensitive, if I’ve got Nick in a good mood,” Sam said cheerily.

Nick wondered why Sam was bothering to explain that. _Here’s what my wind-up doll boy likes…_ But he finished unbuttoning his shirt and let it fall open. The layout of his seams, and the damage to what would have been his ribcage on the one side was rather obvious. Sam reached in, fingers circling around the rivets on Nick’s flanks.

“You have a navel, though,” said Sybil.

“Yes, and he’s -” Sam started, a manic glint in his eyes.

Nick cut him off, “Samuel Vimes, if you finish that sentence, I swear to God, I’m gonna go take a smoke break.” The fact that Nick Valentine was ticklish was Need To Know information, and Sybil didn’t need to know.

Sam closed his mouth. Then he offered contritely, “I’ll be good.”

Nick eyed him warily, but he shrugged off his shirt. 

Sam, who was sitting on his lap, pushed him down, so that his back was flat on the bed, only his legs from the knees down hanging over the side of their bed. They kissed again, one of Sam’s hands roving down into Nick’s trousers. Nick could feel that Sam, atop him, was already half-hard. Sam was really excited by all this, and Nick felt like he’d barely done anything. He spread his legs, brought them up around Sam’s hips, and rolled the both of them more firmly onto the bed, no dangling legs. Now on top, Nick propped himself up as best he could with his metal hand so that he could gaze down into Sam’s eyes, and his synthflesh hand went to work lovingly tracing Sam’s fascinating collection of scars. 

They went on in that way, kissing, cuddling, and caressing, for some time, until Sam pulled Nick down and whispered impishly, “How about _coitus more ferarum_1?”

Being fairly fluent in Latatian was another one of the weird things about Sam. He’d gone to school for less than a year. Nick had asked Sam about it. He’d shrugged and said he’d taught himself Latatian out of Sybil’s books to ‘piss off that tosser Rust. The Lord, not the Lady,’ though Nick could tell that Sam hoped it pissed off Lady Rust, too. 

Sam went through Nick's book of sex positions as if it were a menu, but they had their old fallbacks, and doggy style, cowboy, missionary, oral, and manual were always on that list2. Nick mulled over if he wanted Sybil to see him doing any of those things with her husband. He offered to Sam, “Could I blow you first?”

Maybe going down on Sam, which Nick enjoyed doing anyway, would show Sybil that Nick was a thoughtful and attentive lover, someone who knew how to show her Sam a good time.

Sam lit up. “Oh yes!”

Nick moved down between Sam’s legs and grasped his half-hard shaft, and he sealed his lips around the crown, Sybil scolded, “Sam, you can’t do that to the poor man!”

Sam gave Sybil a strange look.

Sybil sniffed, “It’s degrading.”

Sam asked Nick, worried, “Do you feel degraded, Nick?”

Nick reluctantly took his mouth off Sam’s cock. “No?”

A small, shameful part of him knew that he’d get off anyway, even if Sam _did_ have Nick do something degrading for him, because he felt secure with Sam. He had enough issues with not exactly being a person that being treated like an object by Sam might well be a safe way of working through them. A more rational part of him pointed out that Sam would never ask Nick for anything like that, that Nick would have to ask Sam, and that Sam would probably be embarrassed the entire time.

“Don’t encourage him, Nick,” Sybil scolded. “A freeborn man shouldn’t have another freeborn man perform fellatio for him.”

“Uhm,” said Sam, fixedly staring at nothing. “You’re not saying it would be alright if Nick was a sla -”

“No! Of course not,” Sybil quickly clarified.

“I wasn’t born,” Nick pointed out, possibly unhelpfully.

Sam frowned. “Sybil, dear, I lark you all the time.”

“That’s different,” Sybil said sweetly. “That’s you being a particularly good husband.”

Nick was depressed that eating pussy was a sign of a _particularly_ good husband. It seemed like such a low bar. If he had a gal who liked it, he’d sure go to town on her.

“Nick’s a good husband to me,” Sam argued.

“The mouth is the organ of oratory. Defilement of the mouth is a symbolic silencing,” Sybil informed. 

Nick wondered what being talked over when he said he didn’t feel degraded counted as. He took off his pants, socks, and underpants while they were arguing, wondering how long it would take them to notice.

“Oh, I don’t know about silencing,” Sam started, probably thinking about Nick moaning around his cock.

“Sam,” Sybil said levelly.

“Where are you getting this from?” Sam asked, suspiciously.

“The Ankhian Lex Scantinia,3” Sybil said primly.

“We can debate it later. Why don’t we just move on to something else?” suggested Nick, who had been very worked up and wanted to get around to having sex with his sweetie before segues about traffic lights and whether or not he was being degraded if he gave Sam a blowjob completely ruined the mood.

Sam needed no more encouragement, and he grabbed a bottle of lube from his nightstand, slicked his fingers, and reached for Nick’s ass, clearly having noticed that Nick had finally finished stripping. As one finger went in to the knuckle, Sybil objected, “Oh Sam, you can’t be planning on _pedicare_.”

Nick did not know what that meant. Sam’s mouth moved, as if he was working through conjugations, “ _Pedicare_ , that’s present active infinitive… wait. Wait. Yes, I _am_ going to bugger Nick.”

“You can’t! You’d unman him,” Sybil pleaded.

“I don’t see how that follows?” Sam said faintly, looking at Nick’s _equipment_.

“It’s, uhm, emasculating,” Sybil said carefully, lacing her fingers together.

“Don’t see how, since this is something I’ve only ever done with a man and wouldn’t even think about doing with a woman,” Sam reckoned, rubbing the back of his head.

“And you _shouldn’t_ think about doing it with a woman,” Sybil reminded, glaring.

Sam threw his hands in the air and demanded, “And what _am_ I allowed to do with Nick? What did that Duke you dug up in the back issues of _Twurp’s Peerage_ , that one that married a Baron, do with _his_ husband?”

“The specifics are not on record, but I would imagine that they engaged in, uhm,” she blushed, “ _diamērizein_ , or, well, intercrural sex.”

“What, you mean like a Hugglestones rub4 off the Seamstresses’ Five Pence Menu?” Sam blurted.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Nick observed.

“ _Sam,_ ” said Sybil, who apparently did, putting her hands on her hips and pursing her lips

“They had to raise prices. Inflation’s hit everyone,” Sam said, unrepentantly. 

“Some folks probably pay extra for inflation,” Nick muttered.

Sybil had to take a moment, but then she said, “ _Nick,_ ” in very nearly the same tone that she’d used for _Sam._

Nick elbowed Sam and asked, “Tell a guy what you’re allowed to do to me?”

“Apparently, I’m allowed to frot your thighs,” Sam explained.

Nick couldn’t say he felt particularly enthused about that, but if they could just get this over with, then he could cuddle up with Sam and maybe work on a report about traffic lights. So he said, “I’m down if you want to.”

Sam flopped back down next to Nick, cuddling against him, and he speculatively put a hand between Nick’s thighs, rubbing along the inside. “But how satisfying is it going to be for you?”

“Don’t know! Why don’t you do it, and we find out?” suggested Nick, trying to muster some enthusiasm.

“Oh, good,” said Sybil, apparently relieved that Sam wasn’t going to, oh, to have anal sex with his husband.

Which Sam had been doing. Once or twice or a month. And bottoming at, too, also once or twice a month. God, but Nick hoped Sam would fuck him again, when they didn’t have Sybil watching. If this meant a permanent cessation to Nick’s tail being gotten…

Sam spread a little lube on his cock and thrust it between Nick’s thighs, Nick being glad he didn’t have any rips or tears there that Sam could catch on. They would have been face to face, if their heights were more similar, but as it was, Nick was at lip level to Sam’s forehead, so he wrapped his arms around Sam’s shoulders and kissed his forehead. There was a definite intimacy to the act overall, and his cock ended up sandwiched between his belly and Sam’s, and friction there was pleasurable enough. Sometimes, when Sam bucked a bit higher, his cock would graze against Nick’s balls, and that was nice, in its way. It just wasn’t enough. Nick took more stimulation than that. He needed a hand on his cock or a cock up his ass or _something_.

Sam gripped the back of Nick’s thighs as he thrusted, and he nuzzled against what would have been Nick’s sternum, but he murmured, “You’re not really into this, are you?”

“Just finish,” Nick grunted.

Not that Nick was timing Sam or anything, but it was about six minutes of slippery thrusting and half-assed stimulation to Nick’s cock and balls that left Nick wanting… well, anything, really. A handjob. A blowjob. To fuck Sam. To get fucked by Sam. Nick, who didn’t have much interest in masturbation, would have even gone in for that stupid clockwork dildo that Lady Margolotta had given them as a wedding gift. He was excited, oh yes, but it was the frustrated sort of excited.

“I’m sure you’d both like it if you tried it more,” said Sybil, with perfect confidence.

“I dunno,” said Nick. “Maybe as foreplay?” Sure, it’d be a nice lead-in to get him all hot and bothered, and then he could screw Sam’s hot little mouth or butt. If those were options, which apparently, they were not, according to some weird old-timey sex code.

“So, does Nick get to do me now?” asked Sam, hesitantly, as if he did not quite want to hear the answer.

“Oh no, Sam, dear, of course not. You’re clearly the lover and Nick the beloved, I think the historical precedent makes that obvious,” said Sybil.

“Can I give Nick a handie?” asked Sam gloomily.

“Nick ought to just enjoy satisfying you, dear,” said Sybil.

Nick stared up at the ceiling and admitted quietly, “I could probably go in on that… _if_ it was negotiated _beforehand_.”

He was a versatile switch. He didn’t think he could be anything else, synthetic man that he was. A 1 was as good as a 0, to Nick Valentine.

“But that isn’t _fair_ ,” Sam protested, and one of the things that Nick loved about him was his tremendous sense of fair play.

“The historical precedent -” Sybil started.

“Can go, ah… stuff itself,” Sam fumed. “Nick, if you’ll let me, I’d like to satisfy you, in whichever way you’d like to be satisfied, and Sybil, dear, if you find it disagreeable, you don’t need to watch.”

“But it’s belittling to Nick!” Sybil protested.

Nick tried again, “Uhm. No. I appreciate the concern, but it’s really not. It’s just sex. I get that what Sam and I do don’t follow whatever you read in the Classics, but on the plus side, Sam ain’t shapeshifting into a chicken to seduce me, either, so there’s that. Plus, I don’t go for fowl play.”

Sam elbowed him and whispered hotly, “I’m so mad I didn’t use that pun first.”

“You’ll live, doll,” said Nick.

Sybil considered that, looking at her Sam and his Nick. She sighed. “I suppose I’ve been silly.”

“Kinda, yeah,” agreed Nick.

“What do you want, Nick?” Sam asked anxiously.

“If I give you a bit, can you get it back up?” asked Nick, finally reaching for a towel from his nightstand to clean up his thighs. 

“Oh, sure,” Sam agreed readily.

“Then I’ll give you that blowjob, and you can bend me over on all fours,” Nick said. There’d been the anticipation, dammit.

“Oh. You’re much too nice to me, Nick,” said Sam, cuddling up against Nick again.

“I’m a bleeding heart,” Nick drawled, putting an arm around Sam. _And I get hung up on stuff when I’m denied._

Sybil blushed and offered, “I do apologize for being… presumptuous. I would like to stay to see you finish, if that wouldn’t be disagreeable.”

“As long as you don’t sign me up sight unseen for any more orgasm denial, we’re gold,” said Nick, perfectly deadpan. “I only go in for that on the third date.”

Now Sam sputtered, “Nick!” Then he paused and studied Nick. “You don’t actually go in for that, do you?”

Nick stroked his jawline, feeling the stubble against his metal. “We can talk about it later, sweetheart.”

“You’re messing with me,” Sam decided, crossing his arms.

“Mmm,” was all Nick said.

Sybil laughed a little, watching them. “My, Sam. You’re very… different with Nick.”

Sam thought about that. “Well. Yes.” He looked down at his cock.

Nick looked down at Sam’s cock. There was a saying about a watched pot.

Sam rummaged in his nightstand and suggested, “Card game until I can get it back up again?”

They played at the table in the room. Sam played unusually badly for him, which Nick put down to him being horny. Sybil didn’t play particularly well, either. Nick wouldn’t say that it was his best round of Cripple Mr. Onion, either, but… he was, at metal heart, a machine, and he could do the statistics on different hands with half his processor banks offline. Which was sometimes how he played. No one liked someone who won every time.

He was dealing for a second round when Sam decided that he’d rather climb onto Nick’s lap. “About that gamahuche?”

“I’m gonna assume that means ‘blowjob’, and Sam, for the love of God, would you stop making me need to reach for a slang dictionary when we have sex?” Nick complained.

“You understood what I meant,” said Sam, annoyingly cheerily.

“Yes, because you’re sitting on my lap half-hard!” said Nick, who picked Sam up and sat him on the table.

And there was Sybil, who was trying very hard not to laugh, as she gathered up the cards on the table and neatly put them back in their box.

Nick sighed. Then he went down on Sam. Soon enough, he had Sam the way that he wanted him, so he let him go, and he went back to the bed and got on all fours. Sam came up behind Nick with slippery fingers that teased his ass, and Nick pushed back up against Sam’s hand until Sam gave him something more substantial to fill him up quite snugly. Sam’s hands settled on his hips, and Nick rocked back as Sam pressed forward, and Nick keened happily, “Oh, sweetheart…”

Sybil’s voice broke in, “It doesn’t hurt?”

“Huh? Oh. Oh no,” said Nick. “Not if you do it right, and Sam does me right.”

Sam thrust in a bit deeper and picked up his pace, inquiring, “You like that, don’t you?”

“You know I do,” Nick groaned.

It wasn’t the most intimate or romantic of positions, but the geometry was easy enough, and the soft bed cushioned Nick’s old knees, and it gave Sam the run of Nick. God, but he loved having Sam inside him. The firm strokes up against his most sensitive areas, that connection, that vulnerability...

That the orgasms were intense and diffuse all at the same time, and that, as long as Sam paced himself, Nick might have two or three and be a trembling, shaking mess in Sam’s arms when all was said and done.

“And you… enjoy it, being used so?” Sybil asked.

“...uh, there’s honestly more in this for me than Sam, so…” Nick said awkwardly.

Sam panted, “Nick means that the man on bottom can come a few times, but the man on top comes only once. Though that’s quite nice, too.”

“Really?” said Sybil, with thoughtful interest. “I didn’t know a man could more than once.”

“Me either, until I met Nick,” Sam muttered. His hands gave Nick’s hips a squeeze, and one moved to stroke up and down Nick’s ass and the back up his thigh and up to the small of his back, as he thrust…

...and Nick did have his orgasm, like a lazily burning firework against night sky, and another, and if he didn’t have three, well, two was more than fine, and when they were spent, he lay with his arms around Sam, listening to his heartbeat.

1 Lit. ‘sex in the manner of beasts’ or doggy style. Mr. Slant, in his records, had a lawsuit pertaining to this phrase, lodged by a collection of miscellaneous talking animals, against the humanity of Ankh-Morpork in general, alleging defamation.

2 [As they are on many people’s list.](https://www.zavamed.com/uk/preferred-positions.html)

3 [One of those](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Scantinia) sets [of laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Julia) that no one bothers to enforce anymore, at least not until just then.

4 [Boys will be...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercrural_sex#Male_homosexuality)

* * *

Sybil departed quietly. She felt rather amorous, herself, but Sam and Nick lying tenderly in each other’s arms, half-drowsing, looked so… natural, together, that she didn’t have the heart to disturb them to ask Sam if he might indulge her. It would have been a cruelty of the grossest sort to ask those two, so joined together for the night, to come apart.

She had her Sam tomorrow, anyway, and Sybil had never been the sort of woman who _needed_ a man, though her Sam made her very happy indeed, and she was happier to have him than to not. Sometimes, though, even if her Sam was available, she preferred her own company, and her own company would suit her rather well now, she thought. Sybil walked through the door in Sam and Nick’s room to Sam’s dressing room, where she did not tarry, as a man’s dressing room was his own private space, and then through the other door, to the room which was hers and Sam’s.

It was rather more interestingly decorated, she thought. Her poor Sam had never known how to make a room lived in, and Nick didn’t seem much better, that odd painting of a moose aside. Sybil looked through the bottom drawer of her nightstand, and she found the clockwork toy that Lady Margolotta had thoughtfully gifted to her Sam and Nick, for their wedding. Sam had blushed and flatly refused to have anything to do with it, and Nick had commented that he had no real interest in it, if Sam wasn’t going to use it with him, and so Sybil had appropriated the toy for herself.

She liked gadgets, and even if she was a lady somewhat past a certain age, seeing her Sam laid down in fluffy ecstasy had Sybil feeling pleasantly moist. She loved Sam, and she loved to see him happy. It was as simple as that, really. Besides, she was quite fond of Nick, and she enjoyed seeing his smile. Nick had a lovely smile. Sybil thought about that as she went through the near-ritual that removing even a casual entertaining outfit required.

Then she laid down in her bed, and she wound up the clockwork device, humming absently to herself. The vibrations on it were delightfully strong, and if she put down a hand towel over her rosebud and held it there, she could give herself quite an efficient pleasure. People could be so silly, looking at the shape of the thing and assuming that it had to go inside, when it served perfectly well applied exteriorly.

“Oh,” said Sybil as the first wave hit her. “ _Oh._ ” And another. “ **Oh.** ”

She sank into the sheets, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A** : In Lohengrin, a woman marries a knight, but she cannot say his name (mostly due to magic curses). This proves to be a huge problem for them, one that could have been solved by aliases. Deacon would not have had this problem. "Sorry Lohengrin, but I'm different."
> 
> **We love comments of all lengths, and understand the need for low-energy commenting like kudos. If you ever find yourself wanting to give us additional kudos, feel free to leave a comment of an icon or emoji of a heart! <3**


	2. Yellow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **We’ve created a Discord server for chatting about Discworld, Fallout, or this fic. Feel free to join us at<https://discord.gg/6QM4Egy>**

_Yellow_

Nick knew that they had many gargoyles in the Watch who monitored many busy intersections. They were a goldmine of data about traffic in Ankh-Morpork, just waiting to be tapped. The Watch had already done some work on compiling it, because that told them which areas needed more patrolling. That sort of data collation was probably Pessimal’s doing, or possibly that of the Mark 5 Gooseberry Dis-organiser that Sam had apparently dumped on Pessimal. So Nick did a few things in his free time over the next few days. He thought about what he’d seen when he’d been on traffic duty. He listened to the Watch House and the Bucket tavern talk from Watchmen currently on traffic duty. He did some reading in the Ankh-Morpork legal code about what it had to say about traffic. He did some reading in the Library, too, and said _hi_ to his brother, while he was there; luckily, DiMA had been rather preoccupied chasing down an escaped toad.

Then Nick wrote a report, well, more of a proposal, and gave it to Pessimal, who presumably read it, because shortly thereafter, Pessimal went and found Nick, who was by then on patrol in the Scours with a rat on his shoulder, because that was how his life worked these days.

Pessimal spent the rest of the patrol with them, and the only interruption to the Inspector talking about traffic regulation concepts was when a clearly frightened woman ran up to _Pessimal_ and begged, “Please act like my boyfriend!”

This clearly did not happen to Pessimal often. It took him a moment, and then he rattled off, “The Guild demarcations are clear. Pretend boyfriend services are provided by the Seamstresses’ Guild, at what I have been informed are very reasonable rates.”

“Look, copper, I might have dropped Purple-Green an aliquot of love potion when I meant to put it in Lightfingers’s drink because Purple-Green might have stolen the mug off Lightfingers!” the woman admitted, attempting to hide behind Pessimal, which was difficult, because Pessimal was shorter than Sam was.

“Who is Purple-Green?” Pessimal asked, frowning.

Nick, who was scanning the crowd, easily noticed a mountain of a man who clocked in at over six foot tall and at least half as wide. The man was moving with a deliberate step, and he, too, was scanning the crowd. “Uh. I’d say that’s him.” He pointed surreptitiously.

“Why is he called Purple-Green?” Pessimal inquired owlishly.

“‘Cos he’s a bruiser,” the woman mumbled.

“Debbie! You messing me around with that shortstack!?” bellowed Purple-Green, who parted the street throng like an icebreaker and picked up Pessimal.

Nick had seen some… interesting fighters. He was, after all, married to Sam Vimes, who was an education in and of himself. There was, however, one word, precise, specific, and tactical for Pessimal in a fight, and that word was, of course, _batshit_. A whole new weight category beneath bantamweight bottle covy needed to be invented just for Pessimal.

He waited a moment, as Flavours said, “Uh. Love potions are restricted, ain’t they?”

“Some are,” Nick confirmed.

Then he stepped in and pried Pessimal off Purple-Green, who was very, very bewildered. Nick drawled, “So… that’s Assault on an Officer of the Watch… oh, and Debbie, you’re coming along, too.”

* * *

But Pessimal did take to Nick’s proposal with an almost unsettling avidity, and he had traffic data tabulated, and he had access to tabulating even more of it with relative ease, which was to say that he had the authority, as an Inspector (which was notationally somewhere between a Sergeant and a Captain), to command Lance-Constables to go interview the Watch gargoyles and take notes. This was viewed as a punishment by those so commandeered, but it didn’t change that they had to do it.

Then Pessimal asked Nick about traffic regulating algorithms. Clearly, one might want to have the light on a major thoroughfare green during rush hour for longer times than in the dead of night, and there were so many variables that went into it all.

Nick had already thought about those algorithms with some reluctance. He could do that kind of thinking. It wasn’t much different from hacking. It just meant… admitting he was a machine, not a human. Maybe that didn’t hurt as much as it used to, but it still stung a little.

DiMA wouldn’t have any problem with it at all, and that stung, too.

So after, Nick ended up brainstorming with Pessimal for hours, hours when they both should have been off-duty, as Pessimal pointed out intricacies that Nick hadn’t even known existed to consider.

At one point, Vimes stopped in, slight worry added to his typical expression of baseline anger, and he said, “Oh. Constable Valentine. They said you were up here. Er. You’re still up here?”

“Mister Vimes!” said Pessimal, brightly. “Constable Valentine here has a wonderful traffic light proposal, and we were just talking about data fusion in gargoyle monitoring networks, but I did want to ask you - you know, those magic lights, like the variety that you see over the Saturnalia or some public houses -”

“I don’t like magic,” said Vimes, as he frowned and crossed his arms. Then his expression softened. “Nick, you missed dinner. It’s past nine.”

His internal chronometer, finicky as it was to try to keep anything near accurate time in Ankh-Morpork, told him that Vimes wasn’t wrong.

“You did ask me to run it by the Inspector,” Nick said weakly.

“I understand that, sir, and I understand your objections to magic, but if we were to, for example, have an imp, such as Gooseberry, in a three-candle lantern device switching the shutters on different colour filters...” started Pessimal as Vimes nodded along, “...you would still be using a magic device, insofar as imps _are_ magic. They’re just the sort of magic we don’t think of as magic, because they’re so common that you don’t see them at all.”

Vimes scowled.

“It’s something to think about, sir,” Pessimal said, a tad reproachfully.

“I know there’s a purely electrical way to rig them, but this city doesn’t have an electrical infrastructure. There might be a mechanical way to do it, too,” Nick offered, in consolation.

“Well, think about it,” Vimes dismissed, “and come home, Nick, you’re not on duty right now, and Shaun’s still up because he thinks his history books are lying to him.”

Nick rose from where he was sitting in Pessimal’s office, and he asked, “Aren’t they?”

* * *

As Vimes’s meeting with Vetinari drew to a close - he’d discussed unsafe storage of crossbows, longbows, and shortbows, unauthorized sales of velocipede services, the filing of false instruments, and other such crimes as the Watch was currently facing - and now Vetinari took a moment, waiting, and Vimes found himself sweating. He did have something else to say; he just didn’t exactly want to say it. Vimes played nervously with his file folder. Then he pulled out the neatly stapled report and furtively slid it across the desk to the Patrician, who gazed down upon it without a trace of surprise.

Then Vetinari waited some more.

Vimes said quickly, “It’s just an, er, proposal for something that might help with the city’s traffic problem, uhm. Sir. If you could look at it. If you had some spare time.”

Vetinari looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I am aware of it. Inspector Pessimal stays in touch, and he kindly sent me a copy of his first draft. Now, your Grace, why are you acting so oddly about it?”

“Couldn’t say, sir,” Vimes said, voice faint.

“Hmm,” said Vetinari, steepling those long, slender fingers.

Vimes fiddled with his Pip-Boy. “Oh, look at the time! Well, I won’t use up any more of your valuable time, sir,” said Vimes, slowly backing away.

* * *

“Hullo Mum, Uncle Havelock, Dad,” said young Sam, peeking in on the Yellow Drawing room, where Sybil was having tea with her friend, Havelock Vetinari, as she often did, and also with Nick, because she was quite determined that they all ought to sit down together. “Shaun found an old box of clay pots in the attic, may we have them?”

“And to what use are you putting them?” Sybil inquired.

“Shaun says if you put a pot in a pot, you can use the double layer insulation to keep cold things cold and hot things hot,” young Sam said.

“Oh, splendid, carry on,” said Sybil, and young Sam scampered off.

Nick tilted his head to the side. “He calls his Lordship ‘Uncle’?”

“I have always found it flattering,” said his Lordship. “He refers to you as ‘Dad’?” There was a silent but implied, _Not step-father?_

“He picked that up from Shaun, your Lordship,” Nick said absently.

It raised another question, which also went unsaid: _And why does Shaun do that?_

Sybil had never explicitly told Havelock that Shaun was not quite human, but she knew that he knew. He had his sources. Shaun was _hers_ , hers and Sam’s by blood, but he was, in another sense, Nick’s: by right of species; by right of informal adoption when her Sam had lived with Nick and Shaun as a broken little family together; by right of narrative. Shaun was an unnatural child, and he came by his three parents unnaturally. 

Young Sam was used to being the centre of attention. He wasn’t going to let his new brother have more parents than he did.

Havelock took his tea simply, without cream or sugar, not like her Sam, who liked his tea overboiled until it contained enough tannins that it could be used for curing leather and then with enough cream and sugar added to make a meal of it. The petit fours had barely been touched. 

Sybil decided to gently steer the conversation away from family relationships, implied and otherwise. “What do you think of the traffic light proposal?”

“An intriguing concept. Potentially fiscally workable. However, his Grace seems quite… embarrassed by it, shall I say?” Havelock observed.

Sybil knew that she’d given away something, simply because she knew Havelock, and it was hard to keep him from seeing anything. Still, she covered her mouth and said carefully, “I couldn’t say why.”

“I’m sure you couldn’t,” he agreed, and those ice blue eyes said, _Can’t say and don’t know are quite different, as we both well know._

“It was Nick’s idea at first,” Sybil offered.

“I just mentioned traffic lights were a thing in… where I came from, before the War. Her Ladyship was actually the one who asked Sam why Ankh-Morpork doesn’t have its own traffic lights, your Lordship,” Nick clarified.

Nick was too self-effacing for his own good, Sybil thought.

“There was the stamp of a different hand in addition to Inspector A. E. Pessimal on that report,” said Havelock.

Sybil looked at Nick. He shrugged, “I made some suggestions, your Lordship.”

“Isn’t Nick clever?” Sybil said, smiling at her… they were family of a sort, but she didn’t have a good word for what she and Nick were. Reading on the subject suggested as terms ‘rival spouses’ or, worse, ‘ _enemies_ ’. Deacon, that merry jokester, had suggested ‘metamours’, which had something to recommend it.

Nick shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 

“Isn’t he?” said Havelock, and it became a question, not a statement, as Sybil had made it.

* * *

Sybil was out at a meeting of the Friendly Flame-throwers’ Association. Sam had the night with Nick, and they’d retired to the Yellow Drawing Room, where things were already looking promising. Nick had untied his tie, and either side of it hung loosely under his collar. His shirt buttons were unbuttoned, his belt had been neatly coiled and placed off to the side, and his fly was also unbuttoned. As Sam pulled his own shirt off over his head, Nick finished his drink and then picked up a second, smaller cup, which contained a vinegar and mint mouthwash, which he used to try to disguise the taste of alcohol on his lips before Sam kissed him.

Nick didn’t need to, but it was sweet of him. 

They embraced and kissed, Sam with one hand cradling the back of Nick’s head, his other creeping around to the small of Nick’s back and then down to cup, as Nick cuddled Sam and rubbed Sam’s back, stroking his hands down Sam’s spine, making him shiver. Then Sam moved the hand that he had down the back of Nick’s pants around the front and sighed happily, “Now that’s a treat.”

Sam paused; he heard noises downstairs. Nick called it, “Sybil’s home early.”

Sam considered. “Would you mind if she watched us again?”

It was about a month since Sybil had watched them playing at lovemaking, and Sam knew that she would like to again. He also knew it hadn’t been the most wonderful experience for Nick. Now he watched Nick carefully.

Nick put his hand behind his head and looked away. “Uh. I s’pose.”

Sam nuzzled him. “You don’t have to.”

“You’re excited by it,” Nick said, now feeling stiff in Sam’s arms.

“I’ve told you, we don’t have to do things just because I’m excited by them,” Sam reminded.

“You’ve met me halfway on a lot of things. I’ll give it another spin for you,” said Nick.

* * *

As it turned out, Sybil did want to watch again. Sam was excited, yes, Nick wasn’t wrong on that, but he was also quite terrified. Sybil could be oddly traditional, and she had espoused rather strong opinions about how Sam ought to comport himself with Nick, and while she had realized that it was better to allow Sam and Nick to continue as they were, Sam suspected that she still had certain misconceptions about the physical nature of Sam and Nick’s relationship. Sam was an honest man, in his way. He didn’t want to mislead his wife or misportray his husband, and there was the source of his terror.

The three of them retired to his bedroom with Nick, and now Sam sat at the edge of the bed with his husband. “Again, if anyone feels uncomfortable or just wants a break, speak up. Please.”

“Please, do as you would if I wasn’t here,” Sybil said, an eager look to her.

Sam returned to snogging with Nick, kissing and caressing. His hand wandered back down into Nick’s pants. He blurted, “Nick, I’d like to blow you.”

That would have been nothing, if Sybil wasn’t there, but she was. Sam felt dread trickle down his spine. She’d see that he was a pervert, and she’d be disgusted and reject him.

“You do such a… thing?” Sybil said, softly incredulous.

“Uhm. Yes,” Sam said, blushing beet red. “I do go down on Nick. Often.”

There. He’d said it. His thoughts clustered up and insisted that she’d be repulsed, that she’d scorn him, that -

“Really?” Sybil asked, seeming puzzled. “But, ah, Sam, you’re very much a… man’s man -”

“Yes. Nick’s,” Sam blurted.

“Sam’s not any less of a man when he goes down on me,” Nick said, looking at Sam fondly.

Sybil did not object further, though she might have been biting her tongue. Sam quickly pulled down Nick’s trousers and his smalls and buried his face between Nick’s thighs to hide the shame on his face and the shame that he was feeling shame. He ought not feel ashamed of what he felt for Nick, of what he did with Nick, he knew.

Nick stroked his fingers lovingly through Sam’s hair as Sam kissed the crown of Nick’s cock and kissed down the shaft. Then he came back up and took the crown in his mouth, sucking. He wrapped a hand around the base of Nick’s shaft. Sam couldn’t deepthroat the way that Nick could. He gagged too easily, and they’d had... accidents. Maybe if he’d started as a teen, but the scrawny yes-man that was young Sam Vimes had seen what happened to mollies, and he never would have tried. He valued the integrity of his skull too much.

So he’d rub Nick’s shaft with his hand for what he couldn’t fit in his mouth, and that always seemed to please Nick well enough. Sam sucked up and down, and when he took a break to breathe, he rubbed Nick’s member against the side of his cheek. As he put it back in his mouth, Nick encouraged, “That’s it, sweetheart.”

Suction with lips and tongue, hand for what he couldn’t get otherwise - the next time he needed a break, Sam asked, “Would you give me the key backward?”

Creeping fear gripped him again. Giving Nick a minetting was one thing, but if Sybil thought that activity unmanned Nick, what would she think of Sam playing Nick’s bottom boy? But Sam did, and that was the thing.

“You want a rodgering?” Nick asked.

“Uhm. Yes,” Sam said, in a small voice.

Sybil blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Yes, I like when Nick indorses me!5” Sam blurted, cringing.

There it was, plain and simple.

“But you’ve seemed… yourself,” Sybil said circumspectly.

“And this is myself. When I’m with Nick. Sometimes. We trade off,” Sam managed to explain.

“Oh,” said Sybil weakly, “How… egalitarian?”

“We’re both versatile,” Nick said, shrugging. He sat up against the headboard and directed, “Come here, Sam.” He patted his lap.

Sybil was clearly startled to realize that Sam sometimes bottomed for Nick. In fact, if Nick ran the percentages, Sam bottomed more than he topped, although it wasn’t a huge difference in percentages, maybe ~60/40%? They were both versatile, and if Sam leaned a little more bottom when he was with a man, Nick didn’t mind accommodating that. He just wanted Sam to be happy.

Upon observing that Sam Vimes was, at times, a bottom, Sybil sighed, “I suppose that Abraxas and Didactylos did have their debate as to whether Ténontas or Patátaclus6 was the lover or beloved,” which, if that was supposed to mean anything to Sam and Nick, it did not. Those sounded like names out of DiMA’s philosophy books, but if there was a philosophy of queer porn (and there probably was), and if DiMA was studying it (which, God dammit, DiMA probably was), Nick wanted nothing to do with any of that.

Sam sat on his lap, as Nick reached for the nightstand and got a rubber glove and some lube out. Nick put the thick rubber glove over the metal of his right hand, as Sam pulled his breeches and smalls down and off. Nick spread some lube around Sam’s arsehole, and tickled a gloved finger against Sam, who took the finger inside.

“But that’s metal!” Sybil said, with concern.

“The glove’s thick enough to blunt any sharp edges,” said Nick, fingering Sam with a come-hither motion.

“The… pressure is, uhm, pleasant,” Sam mumbled. Nick switched to firm circling of his prostate. 

He took the naughty book out of Nick’s nightstand and flipped through it. Sam pointed at one and said, “I haven’t bottomed for you for this one.”

Sybil saw the book and inquired, “How did they achieve such, er, clarity on those iconographs?”

“...uh, probably because they’re not iconographs, they’re photographs,” said Nick, who put a sonky on his prick and lubed himself up. He moved to a cross-legged position under Sam.

Sam wrapped his legs around Nick’s hips, and he lowered himself down, reaching back to direct Nick into him, which meant he ended up sitting on Nick’s lap face to face with him, with Nick’s prick in his arse.

It was lovely.

Sam held Nick around the shoulders, and Nick held him around the small of his back. Sam looked at those brilliant amber eyes, slightly unfocused, and kissed Nick’s lips, as he started to rock back and forth on him.

“It doesn’t hurt?” Sybil asked. She’d been concerned about it, too, when Sam had buggered Nick in front of her.

Sam broke the liplock to answer, “Nick’s never hurt me.”

He’d hurt Nick. Sam hadn’t meant to, but he had. That, too, was to his shame.

Nick kissed languidly along Sam’s jaw, and they made love. It was slow; Nick couldn’t thrust in this position, just rock his hips as Sam moved on him, but Nick _felt_ deep in Sam, and being face to face was a delight, that intimate closeness, his hard member trapped between them and rubbing against them both as he rode up and down. Sam sighed contently, “I think I love this position.” Then he added wistfully, “If we both have the time.”

Nick chuckled. “I’m glad it’s good for you, doll. That tight a - ah, bottom of yours, squeezing on me, that’s sure something. Grind for me?”

Sam obeyed, and grinding with that fullness inside him hit a certain spot that desperately wanted for hitting. Nick was his angel, wasn’t he?

It took time, and it was time deliciously well spent, Sam coming two or three times before he felt Nick spasm inside him. They leaned their foreheads against each other, and Nick murmured, “I love you, sweetheart.”

Sam nuzzled against his lover, panting.

“You really did enjoy that,” Sybil said, not quite a question.

“Nick’s brilliant,” Sam said happily.

“Nah, doesn’t get better than you, doll,” Nick demurred.

Some second thoughts poked at Sam’s love-addled brain, and he added, “I enjoy what I have with Nick as I enjoy what I have with you. It’s not better or worse. It’s just… different.”

“Well, Sam, dear, I’m glad that you two enjoyed yourselves,” said Sybil, and she gave her husband a peck. “Nick, you do make sure that he sleeps?”

“I’ll get him tucked in,” Nick said.

“Good night, dear,” Sybil said, as she rose from where she was sitting at the edge of the bed. “I love you.”

“Good night, I love you, Sybil,” Sam said, almost automatically, and his third thoughts caught up and added, “And I love you, too, Nick.”

Why was that so difficult to say?

Sybil headed back to her room, Nick kissed him, and they canoodled some more before Sam fell asleep.

5 [Means about what you’re guessing.](http://madelynne-ellis.com/sexy-slang/)

6 Ephebian for “glory of the potato”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **S** : Forgot to mention in yesterday’s update, but we have added art by the wonderful [Sixxers](https://its-sixxers.tumblr.com/post/619211138546188288/finally-posting-some-proper-commission-info-here) to [Chapter 5 of “Welcome Home”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24868351/chapters/61081597), and I’ve also added some of my own art to [chapter 11 of Welcome Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24868351/chapters/62264398), if you’d like to go check either of those out! (I’ll probably include this note at the start of the next fic, so that the people skipping this one due to porn might still see it). 
> 
> **A** : Flashing magic (neon) signs are not only an established technology in Ankh-Morpork, they're a minor plot point in Guards! Guards!.
> 
> **We love comments of all lengths, and understand the need for low-energy commenting like kudos. If you ever find yourself wanting to give us additional kudos, feel free to leave a comment of an icon or emoji of a heart! <3**


	3. Green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **We’ve created a Discord server for chatting about Discworld, Fallout, or this fic. Feel free to join us at<https://discord.gg/6QM4Egy>**

_Green_

“I didn’t think magic lights would be that cheap,” Vimes said, frowning, as he sat in a budget discussion with Pessimal.

“They’re old technology. They’ve been around long enough to go out of fashion. The Unreal firms that still do magic lights are starved for work, sir,” Pessimal said, hands folded in front of him in tidy fashion. Everything about him was tidy.

“But magic’s tricky. It’s a bit alive. What happens if we put the lights in just the pattern to summon, oh, Joz'gollauth?” asked Vimes cynically.

“Then we’d summon Joz'gollauth, I would expect, sir, but that’s why the cost estimates include arcane leyline mapping to avoid such eventualities,” Pessimal said smoothly.

“And what about the lights themselves just turning into doves or billiard balls or whatever?” Vimes snapped.

“Some will, but it’s old technology, and most of those quirks have been worked out. When one compares our current rates of traffic morbidity and mortality and the associated costs, with the predicted costs of wild magic effects, initial investment, upkeep, and expansion, it comes out a net savings,” said Pessimal.

Old technology. Magic lights didn’t even require a wizard to repair them for ordinary maintenance. Even Vimes knew that. Now, ordinary people didn’t use magic lights, candles and lamp oil being cheaper by an order of magnitude, but casinos and bars still did, sometimes, as did certain dwarfen mines. Dwarfs did their own glowing magic runes, though, without resorting to wizards. But for programmable lights that changed colour, it seemed that magic lights couldn’t be beat.

‘Electricity’ was the dream of androids and Igors. The price quote from the Cunning Artificers on a mechanical system was a price quote for _new_ technology, with all the outrageous expenses therein associated. Imps were, as Pessimal pointed out, also a sort of magic, and the price quote on them, from Steffen Work, noted demonologist, while not as exorbitant as the mechanical system from the Artificers, was still higher than plain old magic lights, because imps had hitherto not been put to that use.

“Dammit,” Vimes grumbled. “He’s going to insist on the magic lights, isn’t he? Vetinari.”

“I’m afraid so, sir,” said Pessimal, who didn’t quite understand why Vimes’s objections to magic lights were so strenuous, but he did want to humour his boss.

Vimes sighed. “Well, if it’ll cut down on the deaths we get every week at Five Ways…”

“Statistically, it will, sir,” Pessimal said brightly. “At least 1.7 lives a month -”

Vimes went crosseyed, trying to imagine fractional people alive now who would otherwise be dead. He said faintly, “Let’s rephrase that, shall we?”

* * *

Her Sam was not different when he settled into bed with her. He felt the same when Sybil kissed him. His hands, rough and calloused, were as gentle as they always had been when she took them in hers. Sybil felt worshipped, when she was with her Sam, when he tenderly explored her curves, loving the peaks as much as the valleys with a geographical enthusiasm that he could never manage for real landscapes. His mouth on her breast and his tongue flicking against her nipple showed the same taste that he had always possessed.

Sam adored her, warm hands moving over stretch-marked skin as if it were finest Agatean silk, like their bedsheets. He bent his head down in supplication at the altar of her rosebud. They’d been married for years. They knew what worked. Her Sam usually did for her first, taking the time to see Sybil to her climax with a clever, deft tongue that traced swirls and sucked and teased.

Her Sam saw to her, and Sybil invited him in. She held him to her as he pumped and thrust, and that was pleasant, too, though he’d given her the dessert upfront. He jerked and was done, and then he was all kisses and a murmured, “Good night, I love you, dear,” to match her own.

No, her Sam wasn’t any different. He was her man, and he was no less of a man. Perhaps Sybil shouldn’t have even had those thoughts about him, but as she tucked in for her rest, she put those thoughts to rest, too.

* * *

So it was that on occasion, if Vimes and Valentine both felt up to it, they’d let Sybil watch them, perhaps once or twice a month, as the mood hit them. 

Right now, Sybil was watching, in her sensible nightgown with the internal pockets. She had a notebook, and every so often, she’d take it out, and Valentine would gently suggest that she might want to put that notebook back because hadn’t her poor husband already had enough woes from scandals over information falling into the wrong hands?

Sam was fairly vanilla. So far, in other times of watching Sam and Nick, Sybil had seen a whole lot of blowjobs and some relatively safe anal sex with sonkies and rubber gloves and lube and pillows to make the positioning easier, because that was most of what Sam and Nick did, left to their own devices.

This time, though, Nick had forgotten himself and said something to Sam, which he thought nothing of saying to Sam in the correct context, but he rather quickly realized that saying it in front of Sam’s lady wife was not the correct context.

Sam had already ducked his head between Nick’s legs, as Nick laid back on a ridiculous pile of pillows, and Sybil ahemed quietly and said, “...did I hear that quite correctly? You, er, informed Sam that he was going to perform fellatio and… touch… himself in preparation for… er… a rousing game of backgammon?”

Actually, what Nick had drawled out was, “Sam? You can suck my dick and finger your own damn ass, because I’m going to fuck you senseless.”

Staring up at the ceiling as Sam kissed along his shaft and started to suck on the head of his cock, Nick reflected that he really should not have said that to Sam in front of his wife. Was that Suicide? Nick was afraid that might be Suicide.

Nick squirmed and admitted, “Not in that particular phrasing, madam…”

“You, his servingman, his Marquess, told your Duke to suck your dick,” Sybil said sweetly.

“...er, yes, but…” and the thing was, Sam was doing it, which made Nick Valentine, who was normally chatty and articulate, less so. “...he likes that, sometimes. And uh, I want to give him what he wants? That, and uh… I just married him, it’s not like I swore fealty, or anything.”

Swearing fealty was, as far as Nick could tell, a much more serious business than marriage.7 One of the oaths that Nick had seen was:

_By the Gods before whom this sanctuary is holy, I will to [Name] be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to the laws of the Gods and the order of the world. Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to him, on condition that he will hold to me as I shall deserve it, and that he will perform everything as it was in our agreement when I submitted myself to him and chose his will._

Like Hell was Nick swearing to love all that Sam loved and shun all that Sam shunned. Sam drank horrible fizzy lemonade. Nick loved the man, but his taste was questionable at times.

“Hm,” said Sybil thoughtfully, and she paused for a while, but Sam didn’t, and Sam knew very well how to get Nick hard, even if Nick was half in terror over how Sybil was going to react.

“So…” said Sybil, looking Nick over critically, “Where is _that_ confidence, that utter cheek, the rest of the time?”

Lady Sybil seemed to think that Nick Valentine’s self-esteem required serious recalibration, and she had made something of a pet project of it. Nick could sort of see why she had done this. In a certain sense, he represented her Sam, and she would obviously want her beloved husband to come off well. Beyond that, Sybil did seem to genuinely like Nick on his own merits and want the best for him. Did Sybil have to be going into this when Sam was sucking Nick’s cock? Was this really the appropriate time?

Nick opened his mouth to respond to Sybil, but he couldn’t come up with a coherent response, even after Sam took his mouth off Nick’s dick and instead climbed on top of Nick. Then Sam kissed him, hard, which removed any chance of responding that he might have had, before pushing himself back onto Nick’s cock. Sam was in really spectacular shape for a man who was charitably described as middle-aged. _Really_ spectacular. His flexibility was something that made Nick’s tired old ratchet joints quake in fear even as it got the hydraulics in his cock maxed out on their pressure readings.

Eventually Sam broke off the kiss, because unlike Nick, Sam needed air. So Nick could have said that, yes, he could lightly talk dirty to Sam because Sam liked it when Nick did, because it meant that, just for a moment, Sam could take a break from solving everyone else’s problems and just have his own needs seen to. Nick having a modicum of self-confidence on behalf of someone else was different than having any confidence of his own. He could have gone into the realization that he could pull off righteous anger and an imperious tone if someone else was at stake, but he couldn’t do it for his own sake. Nick could have, but what he said was more like, “Gneh,” because Sam was very, very tight on his cock and had, by now, taken about all of Nick in, and was grinding on him.

His synth flesh hand gripped Sam’s hip, and his stripped metal hand dug into a pillow. Sam panted, but he had a very self-satisfied look on his face, and he paused for an agonising, teasing moment. Nick’s hand on Sam’s hip tugged Sam the rest of the way down onto his cock, and Sam let out a slightly startled, “Ah!” and he laughed a bit, and then he added, “I do, er, like it if Nick gets a bit naughty with me. I think it’s his prerogative, really? And, anyway, it’s not like we don’t trade off.” He leaned down and kissed Nick, deep and searching, as Nick thrust in and out of him. “What about next Thursday, Nick? Teaspoons?”

“Thursday…” Nick struggled to think about anything other than Sam being on him. “Captain Carrot’s got me penciled down for a triple shift. That’s a holy day unto Monolith, and a bunch of troll Watchmen want the day off.”

“Oh. Bugger,” said Sam mildly, “Saturday?”

“Ehn? Probably?” said Nick hazily.

There was Sam’s sweat and Nick’s coolant pumping and Nick’s _cock_ pumping. There were hands searching and finding and holding. There was tightness and hardness and the slickness of lube over the rubber of a sonky. Finally, there was Sam laughing as he came and pulled himself off Nick and cuddled up against Nick’s chest, loosely wrapping an arm around Nick’s shoulders. Sam kissed him again, and then looked down at Nick and said, innocently, which didn’t suit him at all, “Oh, you haven’t come yet? Poor sod. Guess I just have to suck you off to finish, huh?” 

“God, you’re a cocksucking brat, Sam,” Nick snapped, arching back as Sam ducked his head back down between Nick’s thighs again. Sam peeled the dirty sonky off Nick’s cock, replaced it with a clean one, and set gleefully to work.

Then Nick remembered, again, that Sybil was right there, and Nick had just called her husband a cocksucking brat, which, honestly, Sam was. It was true, but Nick shouldn’t have said it. Sam liked having _something_ in his mouth. Sometimes, a cigar was just a cigar, but sometimes, yes, a metaphorical cigar was a literal cock. At least it wasn’t a bottle of whisky.

Sybil seemed to find that comment deeply fascinating, and she laced her fingers together. She said carefully, “Nick, dear, if you can call my Sam, ahem, a ‘cocksucking brat’ because that is, apparently, something he enjoys, I expect that you could jolly well stand up for yourself a bit better in other circumstances, because I would hazard that Sam would like that, as well?”

Sam did not take his mouth off Nick’s cock, but he did give a cheery thumbs up.

Sybil directed her gaze downward. “You’re standing up fine now, in any case…”

7 [Fealty oaths:](https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/feud-oath1.asp) [just bros being bros](https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1275fealtyhomage.asp), swearing to be another bro’s man from forever and ever, without even a ‘til death do they part’.

* * *

Many cities of the Sto Plains promptly tried to ape Ankh-Morpork’s traffic lights, with varying degrees of success. In Pseudopolis, they had the wizards of Brazeneck, who attempted to set up traffic lights for them. They ended up cursing the entire city with a wasting sickness that could only be lifted by being hit with a different magical curse, which could then be removed per usual curse rules, such as true love’s kiss and whatnot. It had been a mess, and Mister Stibbons of Unseen University had been grudgingly called in to provide magical aid, which he had kindly provided with just that perfect level of smugness that displayed that he was a man of fine judgement, because he wasn’t being even smugger than that and rubbing it in their faces, although he was certainly entitled to by dint of the stupidity he was facing.

Magical accidents aside, most cities merely had problems with the timing, some cities deciding to reduce the length of yellow lights in order to try to speed up the whole process, only to find that with shorter yellow lights, people ran lights all the same, they just ran into each other more often.

In Lancre, King Verence, who had a passion for modernization, had his wife, the witch Queen Magrat, install precisely one traffic light, which she rigged out of some different coloured crystals. Lancre had no need for the light, not actually possessing any intersections to speak of, but both Verence and Magrat were so very proud of it that no one had the heart to tell them that it wasn’t necessary.

No other city pulled off the adaptive, networked traffic algorithms that Ankh-Morpork had except -

The city of PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHansJosephBernhardtWilhelmsberg of Borogravia, which, despite a lack of native gargoyles feeding traffic data into the system, produced a lighted traffic control system that arguably surpassed Ankh-Morpork’s own, despite the fact that PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHansJosephBernhardtWilhelmsberg was tiny and could have done without it. Nonetheless, Colonel Blouse had seen to it that the infrastructure was there, whether they needed it or not.

People still complained about the traffic.

They always did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A:** Magic (neon) lights are a major plot point of Guards! Guards!.
> 
> [Short yellow lights are not great.](https://www.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/)
> 
> **S:** Fun fact! This fic was supposed to be a simple smut one-shot… and then it grew into a three-chapter fic about how Ankh-Morpork gets traffic lights.
> 
> **We love comments of all lengths, and understand the need for low-energy commenting like kudos. If you ever find yourself wanting to give us additional kudos, feel free to leave a comment of an icon or emoji of a heart! <3**


End file.
